Design the Now.

Design the Now.

Speaker Bios

Schedule & Details

Monday, October 2

"Everything You Need to Start Designing in VR"

Neilda PacquingProduct Designer & Mixed Reality Evangelist

In this talk, Neilda gets us started in designing for VR. She'll show us how industries are applying it, the hardware and software we'll use to create it. She'll also go over areas that UX Designers can make a difference and make the space more usable.

about Neilda Pacquing

Neilda Pacquing explores the ways VR/AR/MR has the power to teach empathy and share experiences to others in new ways. She is a UX Designer and VR/AR/MR evangelist and worked for companies such as Sephora and Bank of America designing for a variety of digital platforms. Neilda is currently studying VR development and is working on making apps of her own.

"Intro to Designing with 3D Software for VR"

Katie HughesProduct Design Lead at Beast Pets

Eager to prototype for VR but don't know where to *technically* start? In this session, Katie Hughes will introduce 3D software used for immersive UX/UI design, and give live walkthroughs of the Unity 3D, Tilt Brush and Blocks interfaces in a real-time HTC Vive demonstration culminating in a low-fidelity VR prototype. Attendees will leave the session with the confidence to try out the software themselves and to start designing their own experiences.

This session is tailored toward new or prospective users; no previous Unity, Tilt Brush or Blocks experience is required.

If you would like to follow along for the Unity demonstration, we encourage downloading the free personal version of Unity and creating an account prior to attending this session.

about katie hughes

Katie Hughes leads Product Design for Beast Pets, a San Francisco-based startup making smart and magical pets for virtual reality. She is co-founder of the AR/VR Design SF Meetup group, and previously worked as a UX/UI designer for YBVR. As an emerging tech enthusiast, VR hackathon addict, and UX design evangelist, she is passionate about designing for an inclusive and ethical technological future.

"VR & Brains"

SARIT (SARAH) HERSHAKFOUNDER AT MINDMOVR AND CONSULTANT AT KARUNA LABS

Based on the latest neuroscience research Sarah will explain the unique power VR has over brains. She will focus on how this power can be used in the health care industry and end with some specific tips on how this information can be implemented to design UX in VR. This interactive lecture will explore:

Examples from research in health care on how VR manipulates sensory information and influences the brain.

How brains work – The Predictive Coding framework

How the brain’s plastic sense of self can be used to design better UX

ABOUT Sarit (Sarah) Hashkes

Sarah recently graduated from with Masters Degree in Neuroscience and is dedicated to improve the quality of people's lives with VR. She combines her knowledge from a BSc. in Physics, a MSc. in Cognitive Neuroscience and a lifetime dedicated to movement, martial arts and dance, to create VR experiences that hack the brain body link.

Tuesday, October 3

"The VR Design Process"

CHRIS GALLELLOFOUNDER AT PURPLE.LI AND VR DESIGNER & DEVELOPER

How does designing for VR differ from designing in 2D? Ultimately, the fundamental process is similar, but there are entirely new methods that you'll need to learn. And since the technology is so nascent, new methodologies are coming along every day. Chris Gallello will show examples from his process in designing VR experiences, and introduce methods for prototyping a VR experience even if you're new to the space or don't have the appropriate hardware.

About Chris Gallello

Chris Gallello is the founder of Purple.li (a collaboration tool for designers) and a VR designer/developer. His VR work has included Kitten Cannon, Pointless Puppets, the AR/VR Design SF meetup group, and a variety of other smaller projects. Prior to working on Purple, he was a Product Manager at Microsoft, where he helped people be more productive, and Imgur, where he helped people be less productive.

"Integrating Virtual Reality into Civic Tech"

Inspired by the work of Chris Milk to use VR and 360 Filmmaking to deliver experiences of vulnerable populations on an international scale to UN leaders. Clorama will share her thoughts on how civic tech can similarly draw from this example to utilize the immersive value of VR to close empathy gaps in local government. She will go over several example use cases and demonstrate how she has used the 360 filmmaking to better inform her work and communication with stakeholders when designing user journeys of government services. She will also highlight some case studies of VR as a simulation tool for decision-makers in public policy.

About CLORAMA

Clorama Dorvilias utilizes VR and IoT to solve human problems. She currently leads UX Design and Research in her fellowship at Code for America. She and her team work on technology to improve the economic development for the Municipality of Anchorage, Alaska.

Clorama grew up in San Jose and graduated with a BS in Political Science (2009). After college, she began working in community development in the Public Sector, where she noticed that technology was greatly under utilized. Clorama wanted to have more of impact so she soon became a self-taught front-end developer and volunteered her free-time to help non-profits.

In 2015, Clorama completed her Masters Degree in Interaction Design Communication at University of the Arts in London. For her thesis, she created her first VR app to gamify anti-bias trainings in the workplace. In 2017, Clorama took this a step further and participated in the 2017 Oculus Launch Pad program. She and another partipant collaborated to build a VR Training App.

Clorama now resides in San Francisco, where she balances her love for designing people centered services in civic tech and virtual reality.

"Encompassing Sound: An Overview of Spatialized Audio"

GINA COLLECCHIASENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, AUDIO/DSP AT JAUNT VR

Spatial audio is an essential but often overlooked element of storytelling in virtual reality: we rarely notice dropped video frames, but a single dropped audio sample is blatantly apparent. This talk will demonstrate the capture, post-production, and playback of spatial audio, with a brief introduction to digital audio basics. 3D microphones, head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), popular plugins for placing sound in space, and spatial audio formats will be covered, with a peek at the Jaunt VR audio platform and its offerings. Tips for sound design and auditory perception considerations will also be shared.

About Gina Collecchia

Gina Collecchia is a music technologist living in San Francisco, CA. She holds a Masters in Music, Science, and Technology from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, where she studied digital audio processing under Julius O. Smith III, and a Bachelors in Mathematics from Reed College. She is author of the book Numbers and Notes: An Introduction to Musical Signal Processing, published in 2012 by PSI Press. Gina has held positions at Sennheiser, Apple, SoundHound, and most recently, Jaunt VR, where she leads audio software development for spatial audio.

Wednesday October 4

Mixed Reality & The Five Senses

ALEX THEORYCO-FOUNDER & VR DIRECTOR AT SENSYNC

Virtual Reality is an incredible technology that's quickly expanding the boundaries of storytelling and audience engagement. Narratives expressed through VR have the potential to completely revolutionize our media experiences by creating a multi-sensory and immersive sense of place. At the highest level, truly effective VR will be able to accurately simulate inputs from all five senses, as well as integrate physiological data to create more personalized experiences. In this presentation, Alex Theory, VR Director and CoFounder at Sensync will explore the following topics:

The Five Senses - (sound, sight, smell, touch, taste) what works and what doesn't

Brief History Of Multi Sensory Experiences

VR as an art form

Creating Multi Sensory Experiences In Unity

Integrating Physiological Data & Biofeedback

Drawbacks & possibilities

Predictions for the future

About Alex Theory, PhD

Alex Theory Ph.D. is a CEO, Director, and Executive Producer who specializes in large scale immersive experiences, interactive content, digital marketing, augmented reality, virtual reality, and transmedia storytelling. He has produced a variety of top rated television shows, music videos, films, brand activations, live events, and experiential marketing campaigns. During his career he has worked with clients such as Google, Facebook, iTunes, Cirque du Soleil, MGM, NBC, ABC, PBS, Sting, Black Eyed Peas, Elton John, Alanis Morissette, and many others. In addition to producing media & events, he enjoys writing music and lecturing at conferences/festivals around the world. For more info visit: sensync.me

"User Interface Design for Virtual Reality"

NICK COTTRELLMiXED REALITY PRODUCT DESIGNER

Nick Cottrell is a Product Designer for Mixed Reality. He will teach us how to translate 2D design principles into a 3D space. We'll learn about interacting with UI components, giving the user feedback, and how this is different in a virtual 3d world. Nick will also demonstrate the differences in scale, density, layout, interactions, and context.

About Nick Cottrell

Nick Cottrell is a Mixed Reality UX Designer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Specializing in interface design for products, Nick deploys a wide range of talents that help companies bridge the gap between physical and digital reality. He has experience with a variety of platforms and technologies like virtual reality, social interfaces, and peer-to-peer networks. All of that is supported by a foundation in branding, marketing, and traditional design. Nick believes that design and technology are similar to the craft of tailoring. They both involve stitching things together, finding connections and linking things.

Thursday, October 5

"Prototyping & Designing in a 3D Environment"

DANIEL CARDOZOPRODUCT DESIGN CONSULTANT & VR EVANGELIST

In this talk, Daniel Cardozo will show us how to design and prototype in a 3D Environment. He'll cover:

Why VR design is so different than 2D design

The tools can help us build in 3D in and out of VR

Collaboration and prototyping tools to get input from non-designers

User interface components

UX testing for VR

and more – this man has a lot of information to share with you.

About Daniel Cordozo

Daniel Cardozo is designing Drop, an upcoming VR application for the HTC Vive. His work in motion design and 3D led him to embrace VR as the place where his varied skills intersect.

"How We Made Facebook Spaces"

KATYA KOSTYUKOVA PRODUCT DESIGNER AT FACEBOOK

In this talk Katya from the Facebook Design team, will teach us about social VR and how her team created Facebook Spaces, a platform for hanging out with Facebook friends in a virtual reality setting and exploring photos, videos, and drawing. She'll also teach us ways to influence more people to explore the VR space, and how to engage someone with and without a VR headset.

About Katya Kostyukova

Katya is a product designer at Facebook, working on Social VR and Facebook Spaces. Prior to that, Katya led the design for Audio 360 at Facebook and design of the software suit Spatial Workstation for spatial audio production for 360 videos and Cinematic VR.